


the hole in the middle of my heart (it’s where you belong)

by jadeddiva



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 09:44:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1600358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry takes pictures of his vacation in Storybrooke, and Emma comes to realization about the role of Killian Jones in her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the hole in the middle of my heart (it’s where you belong)

**Author's Note:**

> Back in January or February, artielu prompted me with this idea where Emma leaves pictures of herself around for Killian to help him learn about her. And of course, in typical JD fashion, everything changed to be something else entirely different and you know what? I’m okay with that. (song title from ‘Anyone’s Ghost’ by The National). Thanks artielu for the beta work :)

**the hole in the middle of my heart (it’s where you belong)**

It starts with Henry.

They are at a McDonald’s in Massachusetts, still hours away from Storybrooke but making good time.  For all his swagger, Hook – no, Killian, she’s introduced him to Henry as Killian – is keeping himself reined in _thank god,_ no references to his ship or his crew or his pirate ways, bravado kept to a minimum except when Henry asks questions that he can’t answer without Emma’s help.  What he doesn’t know he answers as honestly as he can, with Emma filling in the modern details without missing a beat.  The story isn’t seamless, but they work well together as a team (a fact he keeps reminding her about on the car ride north) and it seems to work for Henry. 

He’s surprisingly interested in Killian, more so than any of her other colleagues that he’s met, and there is a small part of Emma that wonders if Henry suspects Killian had any role in her turning down Walsh’s proposal.  Killian isn’t flirting with her, though, but his barbs about _monsters_ and _monkeys_ are earning him glares and eye rolls.  She gives as good as she gets while they eat their burgers and fries, and Killian looks surprised at first, but it becomes a ridiculous game with Henry watching as they trade snarky remarks across the Formica table.

“You guys must have worked together a lot,” Henry finally says, stealing one of her fries.

“Enough,” Emma offers with a glance over at him.

“Quite a few harrowing adventures,” Killian asks, scratching the back of his neck with his hand.  

“Where do you live? Is it far?  Is that why you don’t work together more often?” Henry questions, and Emma shoves her fries in his direction.

“Killian is located further south,” she tells him.  “We work together when opportunity arises.”

“Aye, a bit like fate, wouldn’t you say, Swan?” Killian adds with a smile and a wink.  Emma rolls her eyes yet again and reaches for the empty tray.   She goes to throw away the food wrappers and when she comes back, Henry’s slid out of his seat and into the one next to the pirate, holding his phone out from their bodies – and taking a picture.

“Say ‘cheese’,” Henry prompts.  Killian frowns.

“Why would I say ‘cheese’?” he asks, but Henry snaps the picture, glances at it, and then huffs.

“You can totally do better.”  The phone is extended again, and even though Killian doesn’t seem to have a clue what’s going on, his eyes meet hers and he smiles automatically.

It is a nice smile, and it seems to please Henry.

“Okay, now for a bad-ass picture –“

“Language,” Emma cautions Henry, who shrugs his shoulders and gets Killian to make his most roguish face (it involves a raised eyebrow and a haughty stare).  After the picture is taken, Henry starts to fiddle with the keys and Emma shakes her head, knowing where this is going.

“No Facebook,” she tells him.  “You know my policy on photos.”  Photos of Henry have never ended up on the internet, in her (new) life, because of her absolute fear that Neal would find them.  When Henry ducks his head down, Emma relents, adding, “but you can send them to me if you want.”

“I can take one of you and my Mom,” Henry announces to them both, and even though he has to be confused about what is going on, Killian seems to perk up at this development.  Henry slides out of the chair and with little encouragement, Emma slides in next to Killian.

“Smile, love,” he whispers in her ear, and Emma rolls her eyes but smiles, sliding her arm against his side, fingers pressed against his ribs.

She remembers poking him there, watching him jolt, the memory of his accident still fresh in her mind and she curls her hand up into a fist before she realizes how much time has passed and that the (physical) wounds have healed.

“Now go hard – you’re big bad bounty hunters after all,” Henry encourages, even though that is very much NOT what Emma does, but she gives it her best shot.

They pile back into the car and hit the gas station, where Henry and Killian raid the junk food aisles while Emma pumps gas.  She leans on the hood while the car fills up, takes out her own phone, and checks the pics that Henry sent to her email account.

The ones of her and Killian are something else – their smiles bright and happy and their tough faces comically menacing, but the pictures of Killian and Henry make her stop and pause.  They look happy together in a way that she thought she wanted with Walsh.  The tug in her gut – to give Henry a family, a father, to give herself a partner – is strong.  She knows that the whole Walsh situation is something she can’t easily stomach, but it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t wish for that missing piece in their perfect family.

Which, of course, brings up the fact that they’re going to Storybrooke where Neal is, presumably, since he got catapulted back to the Enchanted Forest with her parents and Killian.  Which brings up a whole ‘nother topic of conversation she’s not going to deal with right now.

The pump clicks just as the door bells chime, and Killian and Henry head to the car, Henry swinging a plastic bag. 

“They had gummy worms!” Henry announces happily as he climbs into the backseat, and Emma shoots Killian a wary look.

“How much sugar did you let my son buy?” she asks, and he shakes his head.

“I have no idea about the food in your realm, Swan,” he tells her, “I have no idea what the lad bought,” and she sighs.  As he turns to move into the car, she calls out to him, “Hey, come and see these pictures Henry took.”

She hands him her phone, swipes through the photos by leaning over his shoulder.  “Such a dashing rapscallion,” she teases, and he nods.

“Aye, and a scoundrel, eh? I knew you missed me, Swan.”  He turns to face her and she puts her hand on his arm, just above the brace that used to hold his hook and now holds this false hand. 

“I did,” she tells him, because out of all the bits and pieces she can put together, the mixture of emotions she felt when the fog cleared and it was him staring at her, the cacophony of New York echoing around her…

…what she felt was happiness and relief that it was him.

He glances down at her hand on his arm, then up to her face, features shifting as he tries to decipher what’s going on, and so she removes her hand quickly.

“Sorry,” she says as she realizes that the Emma he knows is not quick with her affections or free with her touch (the last time she remembers touching him it was to grab his arm and ask for his help, and before that it was under utterly different circumstances and this gift Regina’s given her, this new life and new year, is both awful and amazing at once- )

“No matter, Swan,” he says, and there’s a harshness to his tone of voice that wasn’t there before, and which she’s seen more of since her memory’s returned (what happened in that missing year?).  “Shall we continue north?”

“Yeah, let’s go,” she says with a nod, turning back to the car.  “Storybrooke awaits.”

And as Emma pulls out of the parking lot, she thinks about the picture on her cellphone, and the easy smile on both of their faces.

…

Storybrooke is exactly the same - albeit with a bunch of angry citizens who want to know what happened to their missing year and, apparently, citizens who should be there.

Emma hugs her parents as they leave, then closes the door to Granny’s parlor and looks at Killian (who refuses to leave her side, refuses David’s offer of sleeping on the couch out of concern for her).  He takes a room across the hall from her, and there is a not-so-small part of her that is grateful he is so near.

He allows her to go up the stairs first, and once they reach the landing she lingers, fingers on her doorknob, turning to look back at him.

“Breakfast tomorrow?” she asks.  Killian nods, looking weary.

“Goodnight, Swan,” he says, opening the door and heading into his own room.  She does the same, shutting the door quietly when she hears Henry’s soft snores from his bed.   She thinks about the pirate in his room, in this strange land, and wonders if he has everything – if he needs clothes to sleep in or a toothbrush (do they even have toothbrushes in the Enchanted Forest?).  She presses her palm flat against the door, leans her head against the cool wood.

Suddenly the distance between them feels like miles instead of feet, and Emma feels lost; she did not know he was her anchor until he is no longer by her side and she is alone, in a place she’s been before, with people who know her, and a son who doesn’t know them.

Emma undresses by the dim light of the bathroom, changes into pajamas and brushes her teeth and washes her face.  She pulls her hair back into a ponytail, studies the dark circles beneath her eyes and tries to remember if they were in the picture with Killian.  She pulls out her phone and scrolls through the photos again.  Perhaps it’s Storybrooke, and wearing the mantle of the Savior, that weighs her down (and Neal, and Henry not knowing Neal, and Henry not knowing anyone, each thought another stone pressing her down down down - )

She doesn’t sleep easy that night, and she can’t blame Henry’s snores or the absolute quiet of Storybrooke, because this is what she remembers but it’s different: scattered in between her memories of this place are the memories that Regina created for them, and memories of Walsh, and memories of Neal that are real and yet not, and there is nothing about her parents or Killian in that false life.  What does exist are memories of Henry as a baby, memories she shouldn’t have but still does, memories that are wonderful in their beauty and heartbreaking because they are not hers.

She wakes early, showers, and decides to walk the streets of Storybrooke.  The local drugstore is open early and so she stops in, picking up toothpaste and a toothbrush for Killian.  The store looks like it opened in 1975 but, surprisingly, there is a photo printer in the corner.   Without thinking too deeply about it, she prints the photos Henry took – just a set for her and Henry, and a picture for Killian, all on a whim.

Emma walks back to Granny’s and sits in the booth she always favored, sipping coffee.  She digs around in her bag for a pen, scribbles a message on the back of the photo of her and Killian smiling.  _Thanks._   She puts it back in the bag, places it on the table and sips her coffee again.

Killian ambles into the diner just after 7:30, looking like he barely slept a wink.  She slides the plastic bag across the tabletop.  “I bought you a toothbrush,” she says, “because I didn’t think you had one.”

He frowns for a moment, unsure of what to think, fingers reaching into the bag.  He pulls out the photo, looks at it before turning it over, reading the message.

“It’s a picture,” she says.  “Remember – Henry took it yesterday?”

A look crosses Killian’s face, and she wonders if this is the first time that he’s seen himself like this – the first time that he’s seen a photograph. 

“This is what your lad was doing?” he asks, blue eyes studying her with intensity.  “This is of the two of us.”

“Yeah…I just wanted to thank you.”  She shifts, uneasily, and Killian looks down at the picture again.

“You’re welcome,” he says quietly, folding and slipping the picture into his jacket just as Henry comes down the stairs looking for breakfast. 

(He watches her warily over bacon and eggs and she feels something in the pit of her stomach.  He’s never looked at her like that before – like she’s something to be afraid of.)

…

Things shift.

The longer she stays in Storybrooke, the more she comes to regret that Killian has brought her back here.  It becomes painfully obvious that she’s once again the Savior and she’s the one that will save them from this wicked bitch who is Regina’s sister (of course Regina’s sister has a chip the size of the entire east coast, of course it’s her who’s wreaking havoc on Storybrooke).

Suddenly thoughts of New York, of Sunday morning bowls of Fruity Pebbles and cartoons, and it’s all that she wants.  Suddenly everyone here, from her parents to Regina to Killian, sets her teeth on edge.  Everyone wants her to be someone she doesn’t want to be, but which she will be reluctantly for them, but not forever.

Emma dreams of running away, of pizza and video games, of the relative simplicity that was New York. 

She wakes up exhausted and out of breath.

Things shift between her and Killian too.   Wherever she goes, he goes, and Emma soon realizes it’s an unspoken agreement between the two of them, that he will always be her back-up.  Everyone else accepts it – her mother, her father, and even Regina – and so she doesn’t say anything.   

She doesn’t mind it at all, and there is a large part of her that wonders if she should, and another part of her that realizes that having Hook as her companion when she goes off on her own is probably better than anything else.  He can be pretty good in a fight, and he was right all along: they make a good team.

Emma tells him that one day.  “We do make a good team,” she says as they trudge back through the woods, away from Zelena’s farmhouse. 

He glances at her, nods.  “Aye, that we do,” he tells her, but there is no innuendo, no follow-up comment about monkeys.  Killian just keeps walking.

Emma is not an idiot: she knows that he is in love with her.  She’s known since the Echo Caves, since he promised that when he won her heart there would be no trickery.  She doesn’t understand why he loves her, and what he possibly sees in her that brought him back from another realm to find her (he won’t tell her what happened in that lost year despite her urging, and she leaves it at that because she knows what happens when you corner someone).

Emma lets him stay at her side, because it feels so right that she doesn’t want to question it, because questioning leads to doubt just as easily as it does to faith, and she’s not sure she’s ready to believe in anything or nothing just yet.

…

In all of the chaos that is Zelena’s reign of terror, Emma finds herself depositing Henry with Killian more than she should.  It starts off with the one occasion – Killian needed closure about Neal’s death, Henry needing to know his father ( _he knows his father deep down inside,_ her heart keeps telling her, _just break the curse_ ).  It works out really well, because both of them come back windblown and happy.

It happens again, when she’s practicing magic, and her son comes home with stories of tying knots and learning how to roll dice and pictures – more pictures on his cell phone, pictures of the two of them.  She flips through them one night while Henry is in the shower, surprised that she is studying each and every one just to best understand the angles of Killian’s face, the way that he smiles.

There is something so open about his face in the photos that Henry has taken – so different from the man who postures so much in front of her mother and her father (and only sometimes in front of her anymore, and that is when he wants to make her react).  There is a happiness she rarely sees, except in the moments when he is with her or her son, and she doesn’t want to think about that.  Happiness has been elusive in her life and just when she thinks it’s in her grasp, something or someone comes along and shoves her away, and it’s that fall from grace that breaks her every time.

She keeps scrolling and finds the pictures from the McD’s – her and Killian, Killian and Henry, and she stumbles upon one picture, where he’s looking up and away from the camera and his face is just…

He’s beautiful, in a way that she’s never seen him before.  This is more than the openness or happiness.  This is transcending everything else, and his eyes are looking away from the camera, up and away and it’s with a gasp that Emma realizes that he’s looking at her (no one has ever looked at her like this, never ever in her life, not Neal or Walsh or any of the men she’s dated, the closest she’s ever had has been Henry when she broke the curse and - )

She shuts the phone off and throws it across the bed because she feels like she’s about to cry or scream, nothing about her emotions in check right now.  She has to wrap her arms around herself to keep from falling apart once she hears the shower shut off and Henry rustling around in the bathroom. 

“Are you all right, Mom?” he asks when he finds her flipping rapidly through TV channels.

“What? Yeah, fine, kid,” she tells him.  He grabs his phone off the bed and sits down next to her.

“Did you look at those pictures from today? Want me to send them to you?” he asks, and Emma nods without thinking.  _Yes_ she wants them, if only to remember that there was someone who  once loved her in spite of herself.

She shows them to Killian one day while they are having lunch at Granny’s.

He is tense and nervous, fidgeting in his chair, taking swigs of his flask in a way that he hasn’t since they’ve been reunited (and considering all the time they spend together, how she’s rarely parted from him, it’s something she’s noticed and it makes her uneasy).

“What’s going on?” she asks, phone in her hand, ready to slide it to him.  Killian shakes his head, sinks back into the seat.

“Zelena,” he tells her, as if the witch is the only thing haunting him, and Emma doesn’t press.  She’s said her piece about the past just a few days before.  It’s up for him to believe it.

“Anyway,” she says, sliding the phone across the table, “check out these pics of you and Henry.”

Killian has acclimated to modern technology with astonishing speed, and so he’s able to swipe through the pictures with relative ease.   “He favors his father,” he says, a soft smile on his face which morphs into a painful grimace as he scrolls through.

“Thank you for sharing these, Swan,” he tells her, placing the phone face-down on the table.  He stands up abruptly and exits the diner, bells clinking as the door shuts behind him, and she snatches the phone back with lightning speed.

It’s the pictures from the rest-stop: the ones that had her gasping last night.  Henry must have sent her the entire album and she hadn’t noticed it, and now there are not only pictures of Killian looking up at her with that look of love and awe (his love for her is staggering, and makes her both deeply uncomfortable and deeply embarrassed that he thinks he loves someone like her so greatly) and then there’s one of her that she hasn’t been before – probably snapped by Henry as she was standing up to clear their table at McDonald’s.  She’s looking at Henry and Killian with fondness in her eyes, and she wonders if this was the one that brought him so much pain.

Emma knows all too well that love is pain, and that she’s not exactly encouraging his feelings – in fact, more often than not, the words that come pouring from her mouth are calculated for maximum damage because she knows his weakness and she needs to know what it will take for him to leave (because they always leave, or they’re always lying, and she can’t open her heart to him if he’s just going to leave her or lie to her like the rest of them).

As it turns out, it’s the latter, not the former, in this case: a sin of omission, not telling her that Zelena has cursed his lips.  He tries to help Henry escape and she is seeing red, the thought of her son leaving her and Killian helping, him not telling her (they’re always lying) and _she trusted him with her son_. The feeling of betrayal cuts deep because he is the one person she thought would never do this to her.

(This is always what happens when you trust someone – they will always let you down.  Look out for yourself, and you’ll never get hurt).

With this new fresh wound, New York becomes an obsession, something she’s promising herself is the reward for all this bullshit, that this is her reward for the last hurrah as the Savior.  There’s magic in her that’s powerful (Killian has always said it, has always encouraged her, and that thought makes her stomach twist).

It’s almost fitting she loses it to save him.

They walk back from the farmhouse in silence, and she can practically feel the self-loathing radiating off of him in waves along with the water still dripping from his hair.  He has never been this despondent around her, never been this quiet, and she starts to remember all of the cruel things that she’s been saying to him lately, but still doesn’t offer a word of hope.  The less they talk, the easier it will be for her to leave him behind before he can hurt her again.

Zelena was right when she said Emma can’t wait to run away from him.

…

Emma opens the door to the loft slowly, throwing her keys on the kitchen table.  Mary-Margaret and David will be at the hospital tonight with the baby, and as much as she loves Granny, the beds in the loft are much more comfortable (at least that’s her story).

She thinks about the celebration probably occurring in the diner– the celebration now that Zelena has been defeated, and good has won.  She’s got Henry with her tonight which she doesn’t mind (Regina had asked politely and quietly if Emma wouldn’t mind keeping Henry tonight, eyes flicking over her shoulder to Robin, and Emma can’t blame her for wanting to celebrate.)

But there’s a part of her that doesn’t want to celebrate and she doesn’t know why.  It haunts her even as Henry makes them hot chocolates and sprinkles cinnamon on top.   Instead, she makes a half-hearted comment about sugar before bed.

“Whatever, Mom,” he tells her.  He takes up residence on the couch, PSP in hand, and Emma goes into the kitchen to do the dishes that have been left in the sink in their haste to go after Zelena.   She turns on the water, soaps up a dishcloth, and gets to work.

Her phone on the counter suddenly vibrates.  Emma’s heart jumps, terrified that something else has happened, and she shuts the water off and dries her hands quickly, shaking just a bit as she reaches for her phone.  But it’s not as bad as she thought – just more pictures of her baby brother (that is so strange, to be her age and have a baby brother).  She flips through them, lingering on the chubby little curves of her little brother’s face.   She can’t help but fall in love with him, her fingers itching to hold him again.

Her memories of Henry may still be fictitious, built on Regina’s own, but she cannot ignore how perfect it is to hold a baby, and not for the first time she thanks Regina for the memories she’s been given for sanding down some of her rough edges.

She flips through the pictures but they end and what she finds instead is the one of Henry and Killian – the one Henry sent her only a few days ago, after Neal’s funeral.   They look happy.  They look comfortable together. 

She remembers her absolute and utter fear when Killian flew towards the water tank, her absolute fear when he was no longer breathing, her absolute fear when her lips touched his.  She remembers the look that crossed his face when she told him about New York, and how he said nothing but how the light went out of his eyes.  She remembers how he was gone when she turned back around to ask him to see the baby.

She remembers how it felt to make sharp comments at him, to lash out because he was there- an easy target, with his bleeding heart and his lips that took away her magic and his constant, never-ending love for her.

Almost involuntary, she flicks back through the pictures until she finds another one that Henry sent to her – the one from the day she got her memories back.  Her and Killian, in the booth, smiling.

This picture makes it look so easy.

(It’s never easy.)

(She should know that by now.)

“Hey kid,” Emma calls out, “what do you think about going back to New York?” she asks.  Henry stops playing his game.

“Why would we?” he asks, and Emma frowns.  

“What do you mean?” she asks.  “We had a good life in New York.”

Henry stands up, walks over to the counter.  “We did, but it wasn’t real.  Our family wasn’t there.”

“No, but flying monkeys and crazy witches weren’t either,” Emma points out.  Henry slides onto the stool and stares at her.

“But my mom is here,” he says, voice quiet, and Emma feels her heart lurch in her chest.

“I know, kid, but I didn’t do so bad raising you on my own.  We could do it again.”

“I don’t want to,” Henry says.  “I want to stay in Storybrooke.”

“Storybrooke is just trouble,” Emma says.  “You deserve more than trouble.”

“So you’re running because of a little trouble?”  Henry raises his voice.  “I deserve to be with my family – all of them.” And he pauses.  “And you deserve to be happy too.”

“I will be again in New York,” Emma points out, but Henry shakes his head.

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about, Mom,” he says.  “Look, Regina is dating Robin, so I don’t see why you can’t date Killian.  I know they’re not going to replace my dad.”

Henry’s words take her by surprise, and she tries to play it off at first.  “Regina and Robin, huh?” she asks, putting the phone down and turning back to the sink.  She grabs a towel and starts drying the dishes, but Henry doesn’t let the issue rest.

“You’re doing it again – what you always do,” he tells her.  “You’re running away from your problems.”

“And Storybrooke is my problem?” She says with her back to him as she dries one dish then another, concentrating on getting every inch of the dish dry as bone.

“I think your problem is you’re scared that everyone will leave you,” he tells her.  “I remember what you told me about my dad in New York and that was not okay – letting you take the fall for him.  But I don’t think Mary-Margaret or David would leave you, and Killian came back for you.”

“Henry,” Emma starts, “Neal felt like he had to leave me to give me my best chance.”  The words feel funny coming from her lips, because she doesn’t quite believe them, not when Neal said them or when she says them now, but Henry doesn’t seem to believe her.

“And is leaving really your best chance?” he asks, and she turns around to see the color rising in his cheeks.  He is irritated with her, and so he huffs off towards the couch again, back to his PSP but this time he puts his ear buds in and tunes her out.

Too bad she can’t do the same for his words.

She remembers what Killian said about being happy and she can’t shake the feeling that he’s right.  Maybe he’s always been right.  Maybe she’s scared of being happy here, maybe she’s scared of staying, maybe she’s scared of being left again - by a curse, by a witch, by something else.  Nothing here is simple or easy.  But there are few people she would risk everything for and they all are in this town, and maybe that makes things just a bit different.

His words about Killian not replacing his father bother her, because she still remembers Walsh and how badly she wanted him to be in their life in New York.  She remembers wanting that happy family she saw with David and Mary-Margaret and her little brother today, remembers wanting that so badly in New York but not telling a soul because the minute you say something, you make it real, and real things are easier to break than those that exist only in your heart.

Killian’s face comes unbidden to her mind, the way that he looked when she told him she was leaving again, the way that he always looks when she brings it up.  He hasn’t told her he loves her but that doesn’t mean it’s not real.  It’s always there, in the way that he looks at her in Henry’s pictures and the way that he is at her side, and she has been breaking him slowly with her words the same way that she doesn’t want to be broken herself. 

She throws the towel down, grabs her coat and tells Henry she’ll be right back.  Without waiting for his response, she locks the door behind her, feet thundering down the stairs as she races to Granny’s.  She doesn’t know what she’s going to say to Killian when she finds him – because she’s going for him, because he was right and she was a bitch and she’s sorry, she’s really sorry but she doesn’t want to hurt anymore and she’s been hurting him and maybe she just needs to know what her best chance is and maybe he knows (there is a small part of her that wonders if maybe he’s her best chance and another part of her that knows that he is).

Emma slips in the back door, ignores the party out front as she climbs the stairs.  She raises her hand, knocks on the door of his room.   There is no response.

She knocks again, and hears nothing – no movement from inside, no voice calling out telling her to come in.  Maybe he’s hurt, maybe he’s downstairs, but she needs to know so she picks the lock, and she’s not even sorry about it.

The room is empty, devoid of any belongings or personal mementos (not that Killian has much, not without his ship), bed perfectly made. 

He is not here, and he may not have been all day.

She is about to turn on her heels and see if he’s in the diner because she needs to talk to him, needs to see him like she needs air, and something catches her eye.  It is the picture of them – the one she gave him when they arrived - beside the trash can, as if he threw it out just prior to leaving and didn’t even see that it had not made it in before he left.

Emma bends to pick it up, and something happens to her when she touches it.

She breaks.

It’s a sharp feeling in her ribs, a pain in her chest, a hollowness in her soul.  She gave him this picture of the two of them and he has thrown it so carelessly away – just as she has done with him.

Emma unfolds it carefully, studies the bend in the photo from where he put it in his jacket.  It is well worn, the photo – as he if has taken it out every night and looked at it, run his fingers over her face (in her mind she can see him doing this every night, with her just across the hall, so close and yet so far).  

What has she done?

She shoves the photo in her pocket and bolts from the room downstairs, crashing the party and making her way through the excited dwarves.  They all want to shake her hand but she isn’t here for that.

“Where’s Killian?” she asks Ruby, who shakes her head.

“No idea,” she tells Emma with a shrug.  Granny comes out from the back, tray of beers in her hand.

“The captain checked out a few hours ago,” she tells Emma.  “Paid in gold coin.”

Emma feels her blood run cold because he’s gone.  He’s probably back with his crew, back with the other pirates, stealing a ship and heading out to sea.  Now that Zelena is gone, she will never see him again and she is not okay with that.

She takes off without a second glance, running out the door and to the docks in a dead sprint.   Her mind races through the worst case scenarios – that he is gone forever, that she has no way of contacting him, that something else has happened.  Maybe he’s at the Rabbit Hole, maybe he’s somewhere else –

She reaches the dock and looks around frantically.

“Swan?”

There he is, sitting on a bench, watching the boats bob in the small harbor.    He looks stricken in the harsh lights that illuminate the dock, and she notices his flask is in his hand.  “Is everything all right?” he asks, and Emma nods.  Now that she’s in front of him, she’s suddenly unsure of herself. 

“I went to Granny’s and you weren’t there so I…” she trails off, feeling uncertain.  Her hand reaches into her pocket and she pulls out the photo, holding it in her hands.  Killian stands up, takes a few steps towards her.   He looks down at the picture.

“I see you broke into my room,” he chides her gently.

“Thief,” she says softly, and she watches as his lips twitch upwards in a small smile. 

“Why are you here, Swan?” Killian asks, taking the picture from her hand.  He folds it and tucks it into his jacket pocket. 

“You checked out of Granny’s,” she says, and Killian raises his eyebrows, steps around her. 

“Well, Zelena is vanquished so I assumed I’d find my crew and take to the open seas,” he tells her.  She falls into step beside him as he walks down the dock.

“You could stay here,” she tells him softly.  When he stops and turns to look at her, there is a look of utter devastation on his face and he quickly schools his features into a tight smile.

“You and I both know that you’re going to take your son back to New York, and after you leave, Swan, there is nothing for me here.  Not that there is anything at the moment, either.”  The bitterness in his tone makes her angry and she spits out, “What are you saying?”

“I may be a pirate but I’m not a fool, Swan, and I can take a hint,” he tells her, and even though she knows he’s angry and hurt, he doesn’t raise his voice.  His expression changes, and he becomes sincere once more.  “I wish you the best of luck in life, Emma, and I hope you find what you’re looking for in New York.”

He starts down the boardwalk at a faster pace, and Emma is so surprised at his words that she stands there.  There is a part of her that reacts – strongly, with little care for grace – to the fact that he is leaving her again, like they always do.  There is another part of her that is more than aware of the fact that this time it’s all her fault. 

She wraps her arms around herself, turns to face him.  “I’m sorry,” she says, because she’s done a number on them both and this is all her fault, all her fault.  “I’m so sorry that I’m so broken.”

Killian turns at her words and now there is sadness on his face.  “You’re only as broken as you let yourself be, Emma.” He walks towards her, voice soft and yet so very loud.  “You have a lovely life here – one that would make anyone envious.  You have a family - your parents, and a brother, and a son – people who love you.” His voice cracks on the word ‘love’ and she closes her eyes tight against the tears that are threatening to overtake her (they’ve appeared out of nowhere, brought on by his words, and they are too much.  Everything is too much right now).  “Even when they gave you up, they gave you up with memories.  They always wanted you to have your best chance, and that is a lot more than the rest of us could ever hope for.”

He is standing in front of her when she opens her eyes again, and she brushes back the tears with fingers.

“And what do think my best chance is?” she asks softly.  Killian’s mouth twitches, like he wants to smile but is finding it difficult at the moment (she is finding it difficult not to reach for him).

“I think your best chance is here,” he tells her.  “With people who love you like you deserve to be loved.”

“And how do I deserve to be loved?” she asks, watching his expression once more.  She is causing him pain – she always does – but he would risk everything for her, even his own happiness.

“Fully and completely, for your magic and your soul.”  Killian’s eyes are so sad, and she can’t help it – she reaches up to brush her hand against his face, to take a step closer.

“How could anyone love me like that? After all that I’ve done, pushing everyone else away,” she asks.  Killian smiles, just a bit sad and mournful.

“You are most definitely a difficult person to love, Emma, but I do,” he tells her, “so much that it scares me.”

Emma glances up at his eyes and she knows he is not lying – that he is being completely honest with her like he always is.  He’s (almost) never lied to her, never cheated or stolen, has done everything for the sake of her.

“I’m scared too,” she admits. “Like I’m not enough.  I’ve never been enough.”

“I think that’s for me to decide, isn’t it?” he says with a grin, and she takes a step forward – she is going to kiss him, this is what everything has been building towards, this what she want so desperately – but there is a commotion from the road and Leroy comes running towards him.

“Emma!” he calls out.  “Emma, there’s something wrong at that old barn where you guys found Zelena!”

She can feel adrenaline surge through her at the word, the knowledge that her job as the Savior isn’t done, but Killian moves so that he is standing next to her.  She glances at him and he raises his eyebrows.

“To be continued?” he says hopefully, and she rolls her eyes.

“Yeah,” she says.  “Let’s go be heroes.”

She tells Leroy to grab Henry and take him to Granny’s, and as she pulls out her phone to call Regina (who is going to be pissed, she knows that) Killian can’t help but ask, “And why would the dwarves think you’re here, love?”

“I might have made a scene at the diner looking for you,” she says, slightly embarrassed at her earlier desperation, but the smirk that is on his face is more than enough balm for any wounded pride.

“Had I know that you would be so desperate, Swan, I would have played hard to get all along,” he comments, and she shakes her head.

“You are the worst,” she says but she doesn’t mean it because really, he’s the best (and when she finds herself in the Enchanted Forest, pulled through Zelena’s portal and with Killian at her side once more, she can’t help but smile because if he is her best chance in Storybrooke, then he is her best chance here).

 

 


End file.
